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Top Pollster Nate Silver: Republicans Likely to Win Back Senate in 2014

Nate Silver, the poll guru behind FiveThirtyEight.com and a stat scientist credited with some of the most accurate predictions of elections, told ABC News that the Republicans have a significant edge for the 2014 midterm elections.

The Republicans need six more seats to take over control of the Senate, which would give them both chambers of Congress. Silver says there is a 60 percent chance of the GOP winning the required six seats. He points to West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, and Arkansas where the Republicans are near locks to pick up Senate seats. They would need to win two of the current toss-up states; Louisiana, North Carolina, Michigan, and Alaska.

Silver calls winning the four red leaning states and two of the toss-up states the “path of least resistance to a Senate majority.” He does point out, however, that the Republicans can also wrest away seats in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Colorado.

Just last summer, Silver called the 2014 Senate race a toss-up, saying any party could end up with control. Now, he says “The Democrats’ position has deteriorated somewhat since last summer, with President Obama’s approval ratings down to 42-or-43% from an average of about 45% before. Furthermore, as compared with 2010 or 2012, the GOP has done a better job of recruiting credible candidates, with some exceptions.”

While polls can usually be taken with a grain of salt, Silver has become the poster boy of political data in Washington. He correctly called the winner in each of the 50 states in the 2012 Presidential election, accurately calling 31 of 33 Senate races in the process.

The Republicans haven’t controlled both chambers of congress since 2006 when Democrats surged to retake both the House and Senate for the first time since 1994. The GOP won the House back in 2010 and could clearly regain the Senate, giving the Democrats one of the shortest-reigning majorities in recent decades.